USU Choral Ensembles 'Sing!' At USU

Utah State University’s Caine School of the Arts choral ensembles from the Department of Music present “SING!” Friday, Feb. 20, at 7:30 p.m. in the Performance Hall on the USU campus (approximately 1090 E. 675 North, Logan). The program features two regional premieres, including a work by a USU student.

Tickets are $5 and are available by calling the Caine School of the Arts Box Office, (435) 797-8022, or at the box office online and at the door.

 

SING! features the USU Chamber Singers, USU Chorale and USU Women’s Choir. The student ensembles will present a variety of choral music, including selections from Morton Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna, great American spirituals, folk songs, love songs and the regional premiere of Bob Chilcott’s A Little Jazz Mass for choir and jazz combo.

 

Highlighting the evening is a special performance of O Nata Lux by student composer Ian McDougal, a freshman at USU. A budding composer, McDougal completed O Nata Lux as a high school student and posted the finished work on a Web forum. It was found there by Rebecca Rollett, director of Pittsburgh’s Camerata Chamber Singers, and performed in Pittsburgh in the choir’s highly regarded holiday concert series. That performance marked the first performance by a professional group.

 

McDougal is a member of USU’s Chamber Singers, under the direction of Cory Evans. (See related feature story in Utah State Today.)

 

“Ian’s work in O Nata Lux is a very ethereal, atmospheric setting with a soaring soprano line,” Evans said. “It sounds like ‘light.’ That’s the best way to describe it.”

 

Evans said his group is excited to perform a work created by a fellow student.

 

McDougal is from the Salt Lake City area and is a graduate of Hillcrest High School, where he was the school’s Sterling Scholar for Music in 2008.

 

 

Writer: Sally Okelberry (435) 797-1500, sally.okelberry@usu.edu
Contact: Cory Evans (435) 797-3035, revans@usu.edu